Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Following in the footsteps of the first Club Nintendo exclusive game, Game & Watch Collection, comes ... what else? Game & Watch Collection 2. But, unlike the first collection, which emulated three of the Game & Watch's dual-screen games, this collection only features two single-screen games, Octopus and Parachute, and a new game that combines the two, Parachute X Octopus. Knowing this, should you still put down you hard earned 800 Coins for this? Or should you hold out and wait for other Club Nintendo prizes?

The only thing I would like to mention is the new interface. The first game had a very plain and boring menu system, that while stay true to the aesthetic of the Game & Watch games, was still just unappealing. But this second one takes a different route, and has the look and music as if it was something out of The Legendary Starfy series. Obviously this doesn't make up for the poor selection of just two classic games (and a third that just combines the two) for the steep price of 800 Coins, but it was something I liked at least. If anything, I'd of liked to see New/Old version of the games in this style, akin to the old Game & Watch Gallery games with Mario characters.

ParachuteWhen you select this game or the following, there's something you'll notice right away: the top screen is wasted. The previous collection's use of both screens was neat, because you could have never played those games like that unless you actually had them. But with this, you really have to wonder why it's even on the DS.

The premise of Parachute is simple (as one would expect from a Game & Watch title), a helicopter tosses out characters, and it's up to you to catch them in your boat. It's definitely one of the most fun Game & Watch games around, and once I got the hang of it I kept trying to best my scores, but when the cart only has this and another game it feels a bit like a ripoff.

OctopusWhile I may have really liked Parachute, Octopus has always been a Game & Watch title that I hated. I'm not sure if it's the difficulty, or the limitations of the Game & Watch interface, or that big stupid octopus that's always there, but I've just never been able to get into this one. And being that it's just one of two games on this collection, makes me question why I even got this ... and then I realized it was because I didn't feel like wasting my Coins on paper goods...

Parachute X OctopusAnd then there's the "new" Game & Watch game, Parachute X Octopus. Sadly, as the name suggests, it's just a combination of the two games already on this collection, and not an entirely new Game & Watch set up. And to make things worse, the game never truly uses both screens as it may look. Instead you start off with a game of Parachute on top, and after a certain number of rescues, you go down and grab some treasure while evading the tentacles in Octopus, and repeat. So basically you're just alternating between both games on the collection, just without having to go through menus, and you only have three strikes between both games. It's not overly fun, and really shouldn't even be called new.

Final ThoughtsWhat made the first Club Nintendo Game & Watch Collection neat was that for the first time ever, those three dual-screen Game & Watch titles could be emulated to play as they were intended, which would have been impossible in the four Game & Watch Gallery titles that had released for the different Game Boy platforms. With this second collection, you're getting only two games, both of which have been featured in nearly every Game & Watch compilation, and could've easily been made available via DSiWare like a lot of other Game & Watch titles have been recently. The 'new' inclusion doesn't even warrant a purchase, because it's just the two games alternating from one screen to another. Sure there's some collector's value with this, but then again, there's nothing much else to spend 800 coins on, so the choice is yours.